


The Gift

by lyryk (s_k)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, SPN Springfling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-05
Updated: 2016-04-05
Packaged: 2018-05-31 11:23:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6468292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/s_k/pseuds/lyryk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Imagine yourself in a world in which you never had an older brother. </i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Gift

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Springfling 2016. Many thanks to the lovely [Marcia Elena](http://archiveofourown.org/users/marciaelena/pseuds/Marcia%20Elena) for beta-reading. <3

It’s not even eight in the evening, but Sam’s already a little drunk. 

It’s been one of those weird days when he and Dean, frustrated with their lack of leads and sick with cabin fever, start getting on one another’s nerves and sniping at each other. His phone’s clutched in his hand, the screen staying lit up because he’s been scrolling through his contacts list so many times. Half the people on his list are dead, and he hopes the other half are safe. There’s only one person he wants to call, anyway, but it would make little sense to drunk-dial Dean when he left the bunker so they could both get some space.

 _What would Dean do?_ has been Sam’s go-to question all his life when he’s been in a difficult situation. But the question isn't of much help when Dean himself is Sam’s greatest worry. And Sam’s been worrying that Dean won’t fight, that Dean won’t be _able_ to fight the Darkness. 

He’s thinking of heading to the counter to pay his tab and leave when the flare of a small flame from the table next to his makes him turn around in the dimly-lit room. Someone lighting a cigarette.

“Good evening.” The man inhales, the glow from his cigarette briefly illuminating a clean-shaven, somewhat weathered face and the shiny black-and-gold box of cigarettes that the man’s fingers are carelessly playing with.

“Look, man, whatever it is you want, I’m not interested, okay?” Sam’s rarely rude, even to strangers, but he really isn't in the mood to be propositioned. 

“I’m amused that you'd think I was flirting with you, Mr Winchester.”

It’s casual, the use of Sam’s name.

Sam glances briefly at his phone, scrolling to Dean’s name and keeping his thumb ready to press Call. “What do you want?”

The man lets out a small laugh, a strangely guileless sound. “You’re a smart young man. The standard question people start off with is usually ‘Who are you?’”

“I don't really care who you are.”

The man takes another drag of his cigarette, ash falling to the table’s surface in small fine flakes. “In this line of work,” he continues, in a monologue that doesn’t really require Sam’s participation, “it’s important to know whom you're dealing with, Samuel.”

“So now we’re on a first-name basis, are we? I didn’t get yours.” Sam looks down at his phone again.

“You can call your brother as soon as we’re done,” the man says, reaching over to pat his arm in a fatherly sort of way, an amused, indulgent smile on his face. “If you still want to.”

“Why wouldn't I want to?”

“I’m here to make you a deal, Sam. One that I think you’ll find it hard to refuse.”

“What are you, a crossroads demon?”

The man smiles, a crooked quirk of his mouth accompanied by a cloud of wispy smoke, a thin trail from between his lips. “I’d almost be insulted if you weren’t such an ignorant child.” His tone is colder now, as though Sam’s a penitent and he holds all the absolution.

“So you're higher up on the food chain. What makes you think you can offer me something I want?”

“You’re in quite the dilemma, Samuel.” The man stubs out his cigarette and leans back, steepling his fingers. “And yet it’s quite simple, really. The answer to your problems. The one thing you refuse to really believe.”

“And what would that be?”

“That you would be so much better off without your brother.”

“You don’t know a thing about me or—”

“That you would, in fact,” the man continues, placing another cigarette between his lips, “be better off if your brother had never been born at all.” His lighter sparks to life, his eyes changing color in the flame. “Imagine it, Sam. Imagine the life you could have: imagine yourself in a world in which you never had an older brother. How bright you’d be. How free from worry and guilt.” The man’s gaze holds Sam’s, deeply discerning. “How beautiful.”

“Whoever sent you,” Sam says, reaching for his jacket, “you can tell them to back the fuck off and leave me and my brother alone.”

The man smiles as though Sam hasn't said a thing. “Think of this as my gift to you,” he says, leaning forward and touching his fingertips to the middle of Sam’s forehead.

Sam’s world goes dark.

 

—

 

“Hey, buddy.”

Sam’s head jerks up from the table.

The bartender’s next to him, already wiping down his table with a damp cloth. “We’re closing. Time to go home and sleep it off.”

Sam tries to shake the fuzziness from his head, looking around. There’s no none in the bar aside from him and the bartender. Then he remembers the man who knocked him out.

_Imagine yourself in a world in which you never had an older brother._

“Dean,” Sam whispers. 

 

—

 

He runs all the way home, his phone pressed against his ear the whole time. Dean’s phone rings and rings.

He bursts into the bunker and hears Dean’s phone ringing. Hanging up his own phone, he grabs Dean’s from where it’s sitting on one of the tables. The screen shows sixteen missed calls from Sam.

For a moment the sight of the phone makes Sam weak with relief: if Dean’s phone still exists, it means that Dean himself does. 

“Dean!” 

There’s no response. 

“ _Dean!_ ” Sam runs through the corridors, yelling Dean’s name, checking the kitchen, Dean’s room, the garage. No Impala. No Dean.

No sign, in fact, that Dean even exists anymore. 

_Think of this as my gift to you._

Sam realizes that his face is wet with tears at the same time as he recognizes the need to throw up violently.

He makes it to the kitchen sink and heaves into it until there’s nothing left in his stomach. 

“Dude, what the fuck?”

His head is throbbing with pain, the room still spinning around him, when he hears Dean’s voice. Dean is next to him an instant later, holding back Sam’s hair with one hand, the other rubbing his back. “You okay? Did you drink a whole bar?”

“You weren't here,” Sam chokes out, leaning half on the counter and half on Dean, clutching at Dean’s shirt. “I got back and you weren't here.”

“I took the car out for a spin. Thought I’d pick you up, but the bar was closed.” Dean fills a glass with water and hands it to Sam. “Seriously, Sammy, what the hell happened to you?”

Sam rinses his mouth out and puts the glass on the counter with a shaking hand, the other still gripping Dean’s shirt. “Long story.” He sags against Dean and drags them both to the floor, pressing up close against Dean, his heart still thudding painfully fast. 

Dean goes with it, wrapping his arms around Sam. “You're freaking me out a bit, Sammy,” he says after several moments.

“Thought something had happened to you,” Sam says, his voice muffled against Dean’s shirt. 

“I’m right here,” Dean says, his fingers combing through Sam’s hair. “Right here, Sammy.”

Sam sits up, wiping angrily at his eyes. “I’m sorry. I kinda lost it.”

“I can see that. Wanna tell me why?”

Sam tells him about the maybe-demon from the bar while they're still sitting on the floor, his fingers holding on to the soft plaid of Dean’s sleeve.

“Any idea who that guy was? Some kind of demon?” Dean asks after Sam finishes his story. 

“No idea,” Sam says, feeling exhausted. “But he really did a number on me.”

“You said he knocked you out. Are you sure you're not hurt?”

Sam shakes his head. “I don't think so. I just… I was sure he’d done something to you.”

Dean’s silent for a while. Then he gets to his feet. “Wanna see why I was really out?” He goes to the table and comes back with a bag. “Got these for you.”

Sam gets up and takes the bag from Dean, looking inside. He looks up at Dean. “Dean. You didn’t.”

Inside the bag are the Extended Editions of _The Lord of the Rings_. All three of them.

“Happy birthday, Sammy.”

Sam lets out a watery laugh. “These are awesome, but my birthday isn't for another month.”

Dean shrugs. “Figured it couldn't hurt to get them early. Hey, want to watch the first one? Bet it'll make you feel better, you giant geek.”

“Jerk.” Sam smiles, unable to take his eyes off Dean.

“Bitch.” Dean ruffles his hair and goes to make popcorn.

 

—

 

Later, curled up with Dean on the couch as the credits roll to Enya’s song, Sam has a sudden thought. “Hey, why didn't you take your phone with you?”

“What?” Dean asks.

“When you went out,” Sam clarifies.

“Oh. The store called and said they’d got the DVDs I ordered. Guess I was kinda excited and forgot,” Dean says sheepishly.

“You almost gave me a heart attack.”

“How was I to know you’d be off making deals with demons?”

“I’m not so sure that’s what he was.”

“What else could he have been?” Dean’s sunk low into the couch, long legs stretched out in front of him. He scrunches his socked toes against the rug.

Sam doesn't answer, a half-formed thought beginning to swirl around inside his head.

Dean’s voice breaks into his thoughts. “Knew you’d lose it when Aragorn visits his mother’s grave,” he says, sounding entirely too smug.

Sam rolls his head on the back of the couch to look at him. “Shut up. You totally thought that was the saddest scene in the film.”

“I wasn't the one who had something in his eye.”

“You threw popcorn at me,” Sam protests. “You try not rubbing your eyes when you've got salt in them.”

Dean smirks with his eyes shut, pushing back against the couch like a lazy cat.

Sam reaches for the sleeve of Dean’s t-shirt, curling his fingers into the thin cloth. “Thanks for this, Dean.”

Dean opens his eyes, but doesn't turn his head to look at Sam. “I just. I don't know. Wanted to do something nice for you, you know?”

“What d’you mean?” Sam tugs at his sleeve, but Dean still doesn't look at him. “Dean.”

Dean shrugs. “I keep… I keep messing up the big things, you know? Thought I’d at least try to get the little things right.”

Sam swallows. “You haven't messed up anything.”

“Yeah, right.” Dean tries to pull his arm away, but Sam slips his fingers between Dean’s and entwines them so Dean has to stay.

“Dean. I’m still here, aren't I? I’m still here. You haven't messed anything up.”

Dean finally looks at him. “Yeah,” he says, his voice soft. “Yeah, you are.”

Sam shifts closer to him. “I was thinking. About the demon. Guy. Whatever.”

“Yeah?”

“Maybe he… I don't know, Dean. Maybe he wasn't out to hurt either of us.”

“He scared you so bad you were sick to your stomach, Sam. I wouldn't exactly call that benevolence.”

Sam squeezes Dean’s fingers. “I know, but…” His voice trails off. _I think he did give me a ‘gift,’ in a way_ , he wants to say, but he’s not sure how to explain it to Dean. 

He shakes his head to try to clear it and notices Dean watching him with a fond smile on his face. Dean’s been quiet, just letting Sam think, his fingers beginning to play idly with Sam’s hair. Something shakes loose inside Sam, and he lets his thoughts drift back to Dean. “What?” he asks, smiling back.

“Come here,” Dean says, tugging him closer. 

Sam goes, melting into the kiss that tastes like buttered popcorn and Dean.


End file.
